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The Magician

Bryan D. Dietrich

Issue 154, Spring 2000

i.

Its else, to them, lets logic spill through. Upend,suspend what they no longer want to be real,return them to credulity and they'll shillthe very silk from their souls to keep "prudent" pretend.I knew this from, perhaps, five. Beforeradio, before film, before even inconsequence,I was drawn to it, magic, that boyish loreconjured into career. When, then, did I chance

to peak, Iowa? There are signs, always, one should doubtone's own tales, the blunderbuss trussed up as history.Yes, I tramped the world at twelve, could countthe Bard a shard in my repertoire a good whilebefore that, graced the stage at three, knew Houdinieven, but nothing charmed charms for long, not gaud, not Grover's Mill.

ii.

Nothing charmed stays charmed for long; not God,not Grover's Mill. But when the audiencewants little green men, the film of the century,an aunt who bathes in Perrier only to disappearone Sunday in a rickshaw in China,when they beg for a genius, misunderstoodof course, slugging his way through povertyhawking cheap wine, when the hag-massed conscience

of the country demands the odd, you nod,smile, trick up your sleeve and give it the goodTinsel Town try. Not that Vaudeville ranks minorbilling on the tally sheet of the Grand Exchequer. .It's just that, well, each stage we've built stands for having stood;there's no more holy in holly than promises in wood.

iii.

There's no more holy in holly than there's promisein the sky. I knew this that Halloween,knew the last best hoax was my own faithin nothing, but still the sky fell for the poorrubes who would have bought whatever precipice,bridgeless, I sold them. I took them in their greenyears, hobbled them with hope, fed them the wraiththey were already ready to swallow. Bore

no one. Like lightning, that maxim led me,all fire, fume, forked finesse, into eachirradiated rec-room, from boondocks to beach.And there, they dangled for me, plunged to the sea.Philco or fife, magic or Martian or holy shroud ....Lord! Blackstone, Barnum, they would've been proud.